Abstract
Purpose - Volatile flavor plays a main role in defining the fruit quality by consumers. Bruising leads often to dark spots on fruits and its amount could highly affect product quality. This paper aims to study the effect of bruising on the volatilome released by pears by using proton transfer reaction - mass spectrometry (PTR-MS).
Design/methodology/approach - Fingerprints of non-bruised and bruised pear samples were collected through PTR-MS for 28 days, and discriminant analysis was used to discriminate the fruit products. The CIELAB color changes were also measured during the entire ripening period.
Findings - Bruised pears released a higher intensity of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) compared to non-bruised pears (p(16days)= 0.049,p(22days)= 0.012,p(28days)= 0.006). In particular, the release of m/z 45 and m/z 47 were significantly (p(m/z)45 = 0.076,p(m/z)47 = 0.095.) higher in bruised samples, suggesting that the bruising event accelerated the natural ripening process. CIELAB color coordinates were also recorded. The coordinate a* showed a linear increase during the whole 28 days because of the loss of the green component. The CIELAB Delta E* was higher in the bruised pears than the non-bruised pears (p= 0.022).
Originality/value - Bruising can affect food quality and taste. Bruise susceptibility has been largely studied on apples, tomatoes and peaches, but rarely on pears. Very little is known about the effect of bruising on the volatilome of pears. Moreover, bruising research usually involved the study of physical properties; on the contrary, PTR-MS, applied to bruising research, has never been used before. Besides the analysis of volatilome, the changes in color were also recorded for the whole 28 days of analysis. The proposed method could be applied for the monitoring of pears quality in the food industry.